


The Ones Who Change According to Need

by cliffracerx



Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: Aedra, Alder, Chimer, Daedra, Elder Scrolls Lore, F/M, Gen, Mundus - Freeform, Nirn, Other, boethiah - Freeform, et'Ada, kynareth - Freeform, lorkhan - Freeform, trinimac - Freeform, veloth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 02:45:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17572772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliffracerx/pseuds/cliffracerx
Summary: Before Lorkhan's epiphany, Boethiah had no sphere to call her own.





	The Ones Who Change According to Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AeAyem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeAyem/gifts).



Within the empty mindhold, the spark of the dreamer grew brightly. Then came Lorkhan, the reaper of the mindhold. While the vision of eyes both infinite and multi-faceted became dappled with the concepts of hills and wheat, the wind-wight Kynareth carved ravines with her breath, forming a landscape with a studious, measured hand.

Lorkhan rose from his time-shaped bed to bask in the glory wrought by his vision. He was the frame-maker, carrying in his mind a dream in the form of possibility–a breathing design molded by nature, a place of fluctuation and abundance; a playground upon which things might learn to improve and succeed.

The frame-maker readied himself. The wind and the earth named the goods of the soil and the sky as tools for the walkers-yet-to-be while weighing plans of origin upon six palms. When the scarab turned, and the mirror to the stars opened. He began creating. All things were born of his vision; of his belief. Many other Et’Ada came, ten-fold, and fled, thus separating the concept of Aedra from Daedra--lingerers from departers; their protest a dividing line in the shape of power. The Aedra were those who lingered within this vision and eventually merged with it. Their bones, and Lorkhan’s bones, became the fundaments upon which this Nirn was based.

They became the waters which trickled across the plain, where life would come to flourish: the wolf and the deer, bear and fish, tree and fern, man and mer–they, who once knew the name Ehlnofey. In time, the Ehlnofey were counted among the things that divided, too–not unlike the Aedra and Daedra; once Et’ada themselves, whom they came to venerate (for reasons either selfish or benevolent.) The lesser Daedra later scorned these finite inhabitants of Nirn, naming them _“nithings.”_

Behind the celestial glimmer of supposition, the warrior trained as she watched the frame-maker, her sphere nonexistent until he had arrived; an order yet undeciphered. Daark-spirited and dark-natured; this young king of razors was the one known as Boet-hi-Ah. Beholding this Nirn-thing that he’d made, she wondered: Where within this tapestry of his might she find her place?

Lorkhan had observed all, made all, thought all,  _been_  all--but he was still not satisfied. Everything, it seemed, was simply not enough. Perhaps he walked within a circle of his own.

Gods, the frame-maker realized, as he watched her and the others’ tireless repetition; their incessant circle-walking, were those bound infinitely to their means, each infinite loop stretching out before them like an endless tomb, though they died (and lived) not. They were unable to break the circle as they had been born of it, and the circles waxed as they became the fires stoked by the belief and knowings of those who venerated them.

Armed with the supposition named future, Lorkhan began his great endeavor, sealing it at last with failure and incalculable amounts of effort spent.

“Why,” asked Boet-hi-Ah, “Have you failed?” She was deeply dismayed and dissatisfied with what she only assumed was Lorkhan’s own dissatisfaction with this thing called “failure” (as the prospect of failure had never before occurred to her.)

“To prove that I could,” the crafty scarab replied simply, rubbing his limbs together (whilst making no effort to conceal that he was well-pleased with her query.) “While the consequences of this failure are mine to bear, its benefits are yet to be reaped. They cannot truly be known by either of us.”

Confused and mistaking Lorkhan’s amusement for a quip (as was sometimes his wont), Boethiah asked, “Then by whom shall they be reaped?”

More pleased still that someone deigned to express interest in his creation, Lorkhan whirled on her. “Why, the things that change according to their ideas, and according to their actions, of course!”

Despite marking herself a departer by her previous actions, Boethiah took Lorkhan’s words to heart, and thought long on the idea of consequences and of change. Pondering, she took from him a stone and began to whittle away at her winged labrys, which, guided by her interpretations of Lorkhan’s principles, soon took the shape of a sword.

So too did Boethiah change, though she was destined to remain this changing and ever-shifting thing, neither knowing nor caring to obtain peaceable stillness (since such things seldom took the company of a struggle.)

She knew the form of whatever she wished,  _whenever_  she    wished; crossing boundaries and breaking down walls only to reinforce them and then cross them once more.

Ages after Lorkhan’s death, on the day she appeared before a throng of disenfranchised Aldmer (led by a mer named Veloth) and sang Trinimac’s song while meting out the consequences of Trinimac’s deeds by taking his form while he was lodged within her serpent-scaled throat, the Chimer recorded the great words of Boet-hi-Ah upon their flesh as each mote of blade-truths bounced upon their skins.

She recalled once more Lorkhan’s words, marking these Aldmer as Chimer–creatures like her, in their own way, who changed according to need. She knew well her purpose, and with a hard-loving hand, Boet-hi-Ah guided the Velothi to know theirs in turn, helping them make their home anew after a treacherous journey.

It was a battle hard-won; from which Veloth and his people learnt the dirt-caked lesson that tears, blood, and effort were the currencies best spent.

**Author's Note:**

> -Gifting this little ficlet to someone that inspired me to write in the first place!! thank u so much ayem, I really hope you enjoy reading the completed rendition of this!  
> -the "nithing" thing is one of my headcanons for why dremora say "Join my trophies, nithing!" in oblivion. it's kind of their slang for "nirn thing" basically? haha


End file.
